30th August

1) This is a sobering piece on how Social Media users shy away from having opinions

This very much chimes with our recent observations about increasing levels of homogeneity in digital spaces and across our society as a whole – Is The Web Really Making us Weird  

2) Gartner’s Hype Cycle for 2014 is out ( this is it’s 20 year anniversary) Wearable technology and 3D printing are already on the way down (?) The Internet of Things is right at the top. 

3) Instagram releases Hyperlapse. Here is the clever ( but rather complicated ) technology behind it. 

Here’s a guide on how to work it ( without feeling sick ) 

….and here are 20 early examples of ( caution – motion sickness possible ). 

4) I would have thought this fairly obvious, but the past would seem to indicate otherwise. From The New Yorker – Does it help to know History?‘The real sin that the absence of a historical sense encourages is presentism, in the sense of exaggerating our present problems out of all proportion to those that have previously existed’. 

Here with an alternative perspective, Fast Company presents some stats that suggest that this August has been the worst month ever. 

5) Amazon buys Twitch for more than One $ Billion – and takes on You Tube and Netflix. 

6) Well said, as always – Dave Trott on the difference between Looking and Seeing. 

7) Beautiful – Chilling Drone Footage Captures Iceland’s Frigid Beauty. 

8) A couple of perspectives on TV and Video – Inside Hollywood’s Big Money You Tube Hit Factory ( are the big players squashing the independents? ). 

And how (with evidence from the Emmy’s ) Quality TV viewing is going the way of Newspaper consumption. Most award winners came from pay TV and this is creating what the NYT calls the rise of the ‘Couchtocracy’. 

9) Great Fun. Classic First Lines of Novels in Emojis: A Quiz. 

10) A rather wonderful miscellany of videos from the web this week. Here are a few favourites –  Surf legend Laird Hamilton ‘shoots the pier’ 

Homer Simpson’s Ice Bucket Challenge 

….and Is this the first look at the iPhone 6 ?